AOL has announced that Propeller.com will be the new home for the Netscape social media experiment. What was once considered a possible Digg-killer is now relegated to the backwaters of AOL.
In a statement, Tom Drapeau said that AOL was “working hard behind the scenes to ensure a smooth transition before we officially launch at this new destination,” which given the site isn’t live yet is code for we eventually found a spare domain to rid ourselves of our Digg clone.
It might be too early to Deadpool the Netscape Social news experiment yet, but without the type-in traffic and brand recognition of the Netscape name, the whole idea will struggle to survive; after all the Netscape name, and previously Jason Calacanis’ evangelism was really all the site had going for it. I’ve heard some unconfirmed reports that since the initial announcement the site has been bleeding staff and contributors as well; I give it 12 months max, or AOL flogging Propeller off during this time for a fairly low sum.
Who’s going to buy a sinking ship when you can get a shiny new one for next to nothing (pligg) to do with as you please?
Yes, it was the Netscape brand and the Calacanis name, but that still remains somehow, if only by recognizing where it comes from.
The true test is as you also say, the type-in: Before, thousands of people were somehow “forced” to use it by replacing their more traditional portal-like site (what I think was one of the key factors in Calacanis’ strategy), and now with Propeller that’s lost, except for the loyal audience it may have already acquired in the last 12 months that might move to the new site once it launches.
And it has AOL behind it. A good strategy, design and feature set tailored to the right audience may build a winner, far from the classic Digger profile. But yes, it could also fail miserably, like anything else. So we’ll see how they play it.
Heretic, I think you’re comparing two very different things.
They do not have to be a Digg Clone – they can innovate in a way that makes them different. Look at how CoRank found it niche late in the game.
Wow, Duncan sure has a hardon for bashing Netscape. When will calling every social news site a Digg clone become passe?
duncan, first sentence…
you spelled, Propeller.com as Propller.com
This industry is a history of refined cloning.
RBA, I was comparing a software base with no users to another software base with no users. Just poking fun at yet another me-too corporate train wreck. I even built one of these myself last year. The money was too good to pass up even though I knew it was doomed before I even took the gig. We saved the CEO’s job and he gave us some Nike sneakers ass a thanks. (sic)
mispell
fixed. If they really wanted to be trendy they could have spelled it Propellr I guess
Chirs (4): how else do you describe it? Netscape is submitted stories and social voting: Digg’s model.
lol – propellr, that’s good…replacing the ending “er” with just “r”.
that’s signature web2.0
Duncan,
Although you have a point about the inherent type-in traffic of the current Netscape social news site, all is not lost for them. Provided that they can do a seamless turnaround to Propeller, there is a large and growing community there already. Before you dismiss Netscape / Propeller as another Digg clone doomed to fail, consider that Netscape trends higher than the likes of Reddit, Newsvine, Slashdot, and Ma.gnolia.
One of the Netscape scouts reported that there are over 300,000 registered users: http://neothoug...onthly-uniques/
I’m glad to see Netscape coming out and giving us all a little peak at what they are planning. Like you, I was quick to dismiss them on the decision to close the Netscape social news site. Now, I am hopeful that Propeller will become a credible social news site after all.
You sure like to bash Netscape, do you own shares in Digg or something. This is very cool, Netscape social news needed to come out with something fresh and this is a good start with a cool name and logo. They still need to redesign the site and make it fresh as well but its a start, I really hope they pull this off and take the big bully Digg down a few notches.
Mike
WTF? “The big bully Digg”…what did I miss? And no, I don’t own shares in them.
I welcome the “come back”. I hope you will not fail again.
Rajesh Shakya
http://www.rajeshshakya.com
Duncan – I disagree with many of your comments.
First, Propeller is starting from a better place than 99% of the brands online. If they do the seo correctly with 301s (which would be a lot of work), then all current links will just port to the new site. And they must handle the redirects for blogs that use the “netscape this” buttons.
Second, Tom said he was going to communicate with the users as the transition happens. What’s wrong with posting that they have selected a name? What’s wrong with speaking to your loyals?
Third, now Tom’s team gets a chance to show what they can do. Creating a brand (off or online) is difficult, I have been through many (many larger than Digg will ever be). This name change allows them to remove what you have called the calacanis-era digg clone and create an innovative social news product.
Lastly, why not give them a chance to innovate? For Propeller to work, they need to innovate in the space, and there is plenty of room for that.
Speaking of AOL… Does anyone know why the Sponsored Links block at the bottom of AOL Finance pages (where Google Ads usually are seen) have been blank for at least the last week or more?
@Rick
May be AOL got banned due to click fraud… hehe
“unconfirmed reports” – dude, everything Arrington posts these days is unconfirmed reports.
Allen – I like a lot of what AOL is doing, but this is a near complete surrender, not a fresh new take on the site. Game is over, its been relegated to the minor leagues and I agree with Duncan – it will likely be quietly closed in a year.
it would be pretty funny if this is what AOL is going to launch at TechCrunch 43…
I say let’s wait to see what they’ve done and whether they’ve innovated as Allen suggest they should, or they’ve simply relegated the site to the minor league by just changing the brand and domain name, as Mike’s guessing.
If Mike’s right (and he very well might be), it’d be a petty because as Allen says, they do have an opportunity to build something interesting. We’ll see…
This post shows 21 comments and I see only 20 in here . Is something wrong?
In the early days, I posted a few articles on Netscape, one of which “didn’t meet with their editorial guidelines”, which is funny, because Digg didn’t mind.
Then for whatever reason, my account vanished. I never got a reply when I requested my account details.
Taking that kind of stance right out of the trap does not a good, respected Social Media website maketh…
OK, all bets down! We can check on 9-11 2008 and see if propeller is still spinning….
Michael and Duncan say “no way”.
I’m going with “yes” (although it’s possible that it gets “spun off”, so to speak – nothing like some propeller-related puns…). There WILL be a social news site at propeller.com on 9/11/2008.
Social news sites are NOT hard or expensive to run. They just require users – preferably a growing user base – to run well. Chances are it’ll be cashflow-positive (or close) in the next 12 months, and so they won’t kill it. I don’t see it being a cash cow for anyone either.
Look how long it took f’kcompany.com to die. And those were “moderated” news stories. I wouldn’t be surprised if f’dcompany.com got reintroduced with pligg…
If they don’t innovate, then it could be a quick death. But if they do, it could be a winner. And since we haven’t seen it yet, how do we know which it is?
Why wouldn’t this new app get the same objective review that any other startup gets?
Of course, had they thought about it, it probably would have made sense to demo this at your conference next week and show some screens.
Too late to do this.
Didnt they think of this earlier lol
I don’t think you will see any big changes with the site look right away, they are going to move the site over and then focus on some new features in the future.
“digg killer” phrase thrown around alot these days. The only thing that can “kill” digg is Google. The digg programmer a so talented and focused that Google is the only organization (i know of ) that has the resources, talent and focus to take them out (or buy them and maintain the digg level of quality). A Google-Digg would be VERY cool (Diggle? Giggle?).
Although, any talk of Kevin Rose changing hands usually results in Digg fans gnashing of teeth and eating their own guts with anger. Maybe digg would be better off without the fringe crazies (Kevin Rose groupies) that loiter the comments there.
After talking with some of the scouts I was told that the nigher ups at AOL were stopping the scouts from removing trash/spam from the front page if it “looked” to have gotten their organicly. That is my biggest problem with Netscape, all the spam on the front page!
Right now a front page Netscape story will drive between 2K and 8K page views. I wonder how far that will drop when it changes to the new domain?
I hope this propeller thing goes big. Somebody or something has to put Digg down to the ground.
What is the big deal of having choices? LinkedIn vs. Kickstart, Facebook vs. Myspace vs Virb, Delicious vs Magnolia, Slashdot vs Digg vs Netscape. All these sites have their own dedicated users so I don’t see what is the big deal with any one of their existences. None of the TC Netscape related posts seem to inform the community, but rather just exploit happenings else where to create buzz for itself. What are you guys CNN?
Choice and competition drive innovation. Look at the browser wars with Mozilla Foundation coming out of it. Look at the Mac vs. PC wars and how far both brands have come. Google vs. Yahoo – both are doing amazing things.
So common, you beat the “digg clone” thing to death and now it is going away, so find something else to rag on or maybe report some actual news.
Richard Miller? Why should digg be put down to the grown. Its a great web application. Genius to be honest. The fact that so many clones are coming up attest to that fact, “Digg is great”.
I also agree with rob. I don’t see anyone else out there with the level of focus and genius to defeat digg other than google.
And another thing that powers digg isn’t even just the website. Diggnation the web tv show has a huuuuge userbase. Crushing digg wont be that easy.
So Michael – now you can say Calcanis is failure on this one? This his idea and he did it so he get failure?
Cool name though.
You guys sure do love to assume that the team over there isn’t up to anything else
I’m no longer a part of Netscape, but I do know that the team over there is top notch. They may not make it out of the woods, but I highly doubt that they’re just sitting around on their hands.
Mispell, you misspelled misspell.
Sorry, but anybody calling the Social News Netscape.com a digg-clone is totally clueless.
The Social News Experiment at Netscape.com hopefully will end up with someone who can see what exactly it is. So far, 99.9% of the people writing about (and slamming) the Social News Netscape can’t even see what the thing is.
good